


it starts with a single greeting

by iridescentprincess



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 05:56:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6317398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentprincess/pseuds/iridescentprincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having the tattoo of your soulmate's first words was supposed to be beautiful, a clue for how you were supposed to meet the one you were meant to be with. </p><p>The only problem is that Clarke's tattoo has absolutely no meaning to it whatsoever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it starts with a single greeting

**Author's Note:**

> this is a product of my newfound love for soulmate au fics. I always had a particular scenario in mind, and I finally got around to writing it.

Her soulmate is frustrating before Clarke’s even met them.

It’s there from the moment she’s born, just like everyone else who has a soulmate, and they grow in size as she grows up. Her soulmate’s first words to her stand out on the pale skin of her inner forearm, written in the same font as everyone else’s, a standardized cursive script that is objectively beautiful and clear as day to anyone who reads it.

She truly realized what it meant to have a soulmate in the fourth grade. “Most people are destined to fall in love with someone. The bond between soulmates is powerful, intense, almost tangible,” her teacher had said to her class. “If you have the tattoo, you’re considered one of the lucky ones. You know that you have someone out there who is meant for you.”

Some people don’t have a tattoo on their body, and it isn’t unusual. It just means that there isn’t someone who could be a _perfect_ match for them. People in cases like this could still find someone to love and grow old with; their relationship just wasn’t guaranteed by something bigger, by something like fate.

It was _destiny_ or whatever.

Clarke reads the words every day and feels a slight twinge of frustration every time, because it’s not _words_ , but _a_ word一her tattoo only says _Hi_ and she’s had a million and one strangers say that to her.

Obviously, all of these people were not her soulmate, because what she said back to them was not tattooed on their bodies. The first hundred times a stranger said hi to her, Clarke always got her hopes up for nothing. Over time, the word _hi_ just got old and irritating. Frankly, she hates the word, and she’ll probably hate it until she meets the person she’s supposed to hear it from.

Hell, even her friends like to tease her about it every now and then, Raven and Jasper emphasizing the greeting to her every time they see her, Monty succumbing to the humor of the joke by laughing along with them. To be honest, Clarke lets out a laugh or two whenever they do it.  

“Your soulmate’s first word is so annoying,” Raven says one day. Raven is her best friend and roommate of two years. “When we meet your soulmate, I’m gonna bag on him or her about how much pain they put you through, always making you get excited with that stupid typical fucking greeting.”

Clarke shrugs. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t have the stupid tattoo, but other times I don’t. I kinda like that there’s a guaranteed person out there for me, even if the person sounds frustratingly normal,” she quips.

Raven nods in reply, but Clarke can tell she doesn’t wholeheartedly agree with her. She doesn’t have a tattoo, and she is pretty glad about it, especially after Finn. After she found out that he was having casual sex with Clarke, her desire to have Finn一or anyone else for that matter一as her soulmate flew out the window. She no longer wanted ties with anyone. To anyone else, that might sound like she’s emotionally compromised, but really she just didn’t want to have to deal with anybody’s bullshit. “It would suck if I had to deal with someone like Finn and be stuck with him for the rest of my life,” she had stated, after they began their friendship and the whole fiasco was behind them. She had quickly added, “Not that having a soulmate isn’t beautiful or anything,” partly for Clarke’s benefit, but partly because it was the truth. Soulmates were often overly glorified and treasured, but it’s a fact: having a soulmate is amazing一when you know who they are. Until then, it was aggravating for Clarke to wait for her soulmate to show up in her life.

She uses that as an excuse so that no one can blame her when her first words to her soulmate are… Not the sweetest.

Her day was not going well, considering that her shift at the hospital consisted of her being thrown up on, getting yelled at by grieving parents, and having _three_ patients code in two hours.

She’s just changing out of her scrubs and into her regular clothes in the locker room when Lincoln comes up to her. He’s a resident while she’s an intern, and she’s managed to become good friends with him.

“You will never guess what happened today, Clarke,” Lincoln tells her.

“Let me guess anyway,” she replies, a finger going to her chin. “Did you get to scrub in on a surgery with that doctor who hates everyone?”

“No, but I wish. It’s better than that anyway. I met my soulmate!”

Clarke slumps internally. Another person checked off her list of people who’ve found their soulmates before her. Not that she isn’t completely happy for her friend. She loved seeing her friends happy after they found _the one,_ but it was always a reminder of how she didn’t have any idea where hers was. She flashes Lincoln a smile. “No way! That’s great, Lincoln. Who’s the lucky girl?”

“Her name’s Octavia Blake. She’s just as funny and outspoken as you thought.”

Lincoln’s tattoo is spread across his chest and says _Sorry, I call you Dr. Biceps behind your back._ After Clarke had read it, she had laughed for about five minutes before saying, “I’m glad your soulmate is somebody who will actively appreciate the beauty of your muscles.”

“So what’s the backstory on this?”

“She’s not a patient like I thought she was going to be. Her brother’s the cop who got shot last night at that city bank robbery, the one who saved a kid’s life.”

Clarke remembers hearing about it on the news while she was attending to a patient’s cuts in the ER. It was bad. The criminal was going to shoot a seven-year old if the cop didn’t run in just on time to protect the child. She didn’t get to see paramedics bring the cop in, but she heard from other interns that he was going to be okay.

“I scrubbed in on his surgery, and she got to see me and all of the people that were going to work on her brother, but I never directly talked to her beforehand,” Lincoln continues. “She was talking to her brother when I walked in to check on his vitals. I heard her talking about a hot Dr. Biceps that she was going to try talking to later and she froze up when she saw me. Then she said the words.”

She snorts. “Well, what did you say back to her?”

“Her tattoo says, ‘No need to apologize.’”

Clarke laughs. This has to be one of the funniest soulmate encounters she’s ever heard. “Smooth.”

“Thanks,” he says. “I’m planning on taking her out on a date tonight, but she doesn’t want to leave her brother alone for his first overnight stay at a hospital, and I need somebody to keep an eye on him. Do you mind checking on him for the next couple hours? I’ll be back before nine for sure.”

She sighs. She wants to go home and crash, but she figures her day can’t get any worse from here. “Okay, fine. But you owe me one!”

Lincoln descends on her for a quick hug. “You’re the best,” he murmurs before turning to change out of his scrubs.  

When she’s back in her scrubs, she goes to a nurse at the front desk to get the patient’s charts. _Bellamy Blake,_ it reads. He’s thirty-two一five years older than her一and had a successful surgery taking out a bullet lodged between his ribs, barely missing his right lung. All she needs to do is make sure his stitches aren’t being pulled apart and that he’s comfortable.  

She enters Room 3586 silently. The patient, Bellamy, is asleep in his bed, the TV still on and showing some history documentary. His curly black hair is a bedhead and in the dim hospital light, she can see freckles speckled across his face. _An attractive police officer,_ she judges in her head. Clarke walks up to him and examines his electrocardiogram. _Hmm, his heart rate is a bit high for being asleep, but it should be fine at seventy beats per min一_

“Hi.”

Clarke jumps before rolling her eyes toward the ceiling. _Oh, of course,_ she thinks. It can’t be a bad day unless a stranger says hi to her, and is inevitably not her soulmate. She looks to her right to see that Bellamy is peering at her, his eyes blinking sleepily in a way that she admits looks pretty adorable, but she’s sort of too angry to process it right now.

Why the fuck is the world against her? Why the fuck is _her soulmate_ against her? Okay, maybe not on _purpose_ , but whatever. In the midst of her inner turmoils and thoughts, she forgets to be polite.

“Please do not say that word to me ever again, I am so sick and tired of hearing it!”

Clarke watches as Bellamy’s face switches from anger to confusion to realization to complete and utter shock. At first, she doesn’t know what’s going on, so she asks, “Is something wrong? Are you hurt? Do you need m一”

But then he shakes his head and says, with a deep, hoarse voice, “You’re一you’re my soulmate,” and she understands.

“Holy fuck, seriously?” she swears, sheepish and regretful. She slaps a hand over her mouth. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

When she looks up, Bellamy is staring at her, taking in her messy blonde bun, her makeup-free face, and her blue scrubs under her white lab coat. His eyes roam before returning to her eyes. “It’s fine. You should know I was expecting your very kind and thoughtful first words.”

 _He did not just…_ Was he being sarcastic with her? Well, two could play at that game. “You should know that your first _word_ to me is the most interesting thing I’ve ever read,” she shoots back. Bellamy chuckles, blushing a little in embarrassment, before she continues. “Wait, what were my first words again?”

He smirks at her, actually fucking _smirks_ , before lifting his left arm to show her his tattoo. It’s in the exact same spot as hers, and reads, _Please do not say that word to me ever again, I am so sick and tired of hearing it!_ It takes up his whole forearm.

“Oh,” Clarke breathes.

“What is it?”

Her heart thumps wildly in her chest. It’s a wonder she can hear him at all; the blood is rushing very loudly in her ears. “Reading it just makes it more real.”

“Trust me, I understand you on that one,” Bellamy agrees. “Although I can’t say I have a lot to read off of.” He glances at the tattoo that he can clearly see on her arm.

“You only have yourself to blame for that one.”

“I know,” he says, grinning widely, and his smile warms her all the way down to her toes. She doesn’t know how he could look so smug over one word. “Why were you so angry about me saying hi anyway?”

She sits on the bed, next to Bellamy’s waist. “I got so fed up with people saying hi to me and not ending up as my soulmate. It was like the universe was telling me, 'oh, here’s another person who could’ve been your soulmate, but isn’t.'” Clarke looks down at her hands. “Of course I would go bitch crazy and explode when it actually was my soulmate.”

Bellamy surprises her when he takes her hand in his. His big hand is tan and warm. “It’s okay,” he assures her, and his eyes begin to droop. “I’m Bellamy.”

“I’m Clarke. You should go to sleep, you deserve it. You know, the whole city’s calling you a hero.”

He shrugs. “Any other cop would’ve done it. It comes with the job.” His eyes droop again, and this time they close for a second before opening again. He looks like he’s struggling to keep them open, concentrating them on Clarke’s face entirely.

“Sleep,” she orders him. She brushes his hair away from his forehead. He finally succumbs and closes his eyes.

“I keep thinking that this is a dream, and that I’m woozy on some painkillers and I’ll wake up,” he murmurs, eyes still closed as she continues to brush his hair away. It should be awkward, her having just met him and being all touchy with him already, but it isn’t. He’s her soulmate; she might as well get used to this.  

“Well, I’m not some dream,” she whispers, keeping her voice down, “And I’ll be here in the hospital when you wake up. There’s all the time in the world to get to know each other.”

She goes to get up and leave him, but he tightens his hold on her hand. “You could always stay.” His face pleads with her.

Clarke hesitates, but it’s already eight in the evening and she’s tired and fuck it, she doesn’t care anymore. “Okay.” She moves to the chair next to his bed, but he holds her back again. “No, sleep here in the bed with me,” he whines drowsily.

“You sure you ain’t a bit woozy off those painkillers?” she asks. Bellamy lifts the covers for her, and she obliges by sinking into the bed. It’s a tight fit, so he wraps his arm around her shoulder to press her against him. Her head immediately ends up on his chest so that he can stay on his back.

“Maybe a little,” he whispers into her hair.

They lie there for a couple moments, their breaths, the ECG, and the TV the only sounds in the room.

“Sorry I made your tattoo really lame. I can’t believe I found you,” Bellamy mumbles, half-asleep. “It’s totally worth getting shot and having surgery, princess.”

"It's okay." Clarke lifts her head to narrow her eyes at him. “ _Princess?_ ”

He lifts his left arm, tattoo side facing her, in lieu of an explanation. She sighs. “Okay, I deserved that.”

“Fate thinks you deserve me, too.”

She wrinkles her nose. “You’re so cheesy.”

“Get used to it.”

She thinks she will, eventually. But she doesn’t think she will ever get used to him calling her princess.

And if Octavia and Lincoln come in an hour after they fall asleep, staring at the pair in bed together, they don’t mention it. Clarke and Bellamy's tattoos explain themselves pretty well for them to understand.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, comments and kudos are greatly appreciated! it lets me know that y'all enjoyed this.


End file.
